Brian,

I enjoyed your presentation of your program very much. It was very concise, well written and the material supported superbly. I am positive it is on par of any paper written by any geologist or seismologist and certainly more clear than some I've read over the years. It is direct, to the point and makes a valid statement about the foolishness of people who wish to predict earthquakes in places where they occur all of the time, just to get a hit ratio that really doesn't have any value.

One of my very early predictions was for an earthquake which occurred on the Rodgers Creek Fault. It was a very rare event, so the value was much higher than most, though I missed the magnitude a little. I said it would be a 4.5 and it came in at a 4.2. The window was correct and the location perfect. That was the one and only prediction I sent to the USGS before it occurred and I never received a response after. I cannot verify that one today as the archives of the site where it was written have long since been purged. Had I known then the importance of keeping such records I would have, but you know the rest. I think I issued that one on 9/18/99 and it came in on 9/22/99.

Perhaps you will find something else that piques your interest and you can do something similar then. I'm impressed.

Petra